Shelving Systems

ABSTRACT

A shelving system with shelf and other shelving components having a hook with at least one horizontally extending flange. Supports having slots that operate with at least two shelf hook designs. Slots may be designed to accept hooks with at least one horizontally extending flange on the distal end and hooks with only a vertical distal end.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims the benefit of priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/260,273 filed on Jan. 20, 2012.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to improvements in shelving systems.

BACKGROUND

Retail shelving conventionally comprises a series of vertically extending supports or uprights secured to a vertical wall panel spaced apart by a distance related to the width of the shelves, most commonly 48″, and one or more shelves supported, in use, on the uprights. Each shelf has at least one, and usually two, brackets that include hooks that extend rearwardly from the shelf at its two sides and releasably connect with slots in a pair of the uprights. In the standard form of bracket and upright, the slots in the uprights consist of a series of vertically spaced rectangular openings ⅜″ wide and ¾″ high, vertically spaced on 1″ centers. The bracket hooks have a distal end dimensioned to allow its insertion into one of the rectangular support slots and an intermediate portion of reduced vertical dimension that connects the distal end to the main body of the bracket.

A recent development in retail shelving is the introduction of high capacity shelving systems (“HCSS”) that allow the display of a greater weight of merchandise than conventional shelves. Supports of greater strength are required to hold these HCSS shelves. The HCSS shelves are designed with supports having vertical slots that are essentially the same in position and dimension as those of conventional shelves. When HCSS shelves are mounted on supports designed for conventional shelves, it leads to failure of the supports when the HCSS shelves are fully loaded.

Attempts to solve this problem involved the provision in the uprights of auxiliary slots outboard of the standard slots. The HCSS shelves included brackets with flanges disposed to cooperate with the auxiliary slots. This arrangement is costly and difficult to produce.

SUMMARY

The shelving system disclosed includes HCSS shelves which do not mount on conventional supports, while conventional shelves may be mounted on the vertical supports for the HCSS shelves. Although, shelving systems are of the type commonly used in retail grocery and drug stores, they may be used in any number of applications.

The present disclosure provides an improved HCSS shelving system which includes a bracket on the HCSS shelf having a hook that is dimensioned and arranged so that it will not engage the conventional vertical rectangular slot on a standard upright and a receiving slot on the HCSS support that is dimensioned and arranged to receive both the HCSS bracket hook of the present disclosure and the bracket hook of a standard shelf. In an embodiment of the disclosure, the slot is T-shaped and the distal end of the hook has as horizontally extending flange portion that prevents the hooks insertion into a standard slot. Other shapes may be adopted for the hook and slot according to the present disclosure provided, the shape of the hook is such that it cannot be inserted into the conventional slot.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE DRAWINGS

An embodiment will now be described by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a pair of shelves supported on an upright showing the standard slot and hook;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the prior an shelf bracket showing the distant end of the bracket that mounts in the slot shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of an embodiment of an HCSS bracket having a hook with a distal of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows a perspective view of an embodiment of an HCSS bracket and upright illustrating the slots of the present disclosure that accept both the standard bracket shown in FIG. 2 and the HCSS bracket shown in FIG. 3.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIGS. 1 and 2 illustrate the conventional prior art uptight and bracket for standard shelving. As is well understood, a shelf 11 is releasably mounted on a pair of uprights 13, only one of which is shown in FIG. 1, by means of one or more rearwardly extending hooks 15 at the rear of support brackets 17 of the shelf 11. Each shelf 11 has an identical bracket 17 and hook 15 at each side.

Those hooks 15 are received in rectangular slots 19 of the upright 13. The slots 19 are generally ⅜″ wide and ¾″ high and each receives two hooks 15 from adjacently disposed shelves 11, as seen in FIG. 2. The hooks 15 have a distal portion 21 slightly smaller in vertical dimension than the slot 19 and an intermediate portion 23 of reduced vertical dimension that connects the distal portion 21 of the hook 15 to the main body of the bracket 17.

The distal end of the hook 15 is inserted through the slot 19 in the upright 13 and the bracket 17 and shelf 11 are then moved vertically down so that engagement of the distal end portion 21 of the hook 15 with the rear surface of the support 13 below the slot 19 holds the shelf 11 in place.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of an HCSS shelf bracket 37 of the present disclosure. As shown, in addition to a vertical portion 41 and a vertically smaller intermediate portion 43, the hook 35 includes an upper, horizontally extending flange 47 directed inwardly with respect to the shelf, which with the vertical portion 41, forms an inverted L-shaped hook at the distal end of the bracket. The other side of the shelf 31 (not shown) also has a bracket 37 and hook 35. The hook 35 includes an upper, horizontally extending flange 47 which again is directed inwardly with respect to the shelf 31. As is well known, the shelf bracket 37 may have one two or more hooks 35 for engaging slots on an upright.

FIG. 4 shows two HCSS shelves supported by an HCSS upright 33 of the present disclosure. As seen, the upright 33 has vertically spaced T-shaped slots 39 in place of the conventional rectangular slots. Each slot 39 will accept the hooks 35 of two adjacent HCSS brackets, shown in FIG. 3, and also the hooks 35 of two conventional shelf brackets, shown in FIG. 2. The L-shaped hook 35 shown in FIG. 3, however, cannot be mounted on the conventional upright 13 shown in FIG. 1 because the horizontal flange 47 of the L-shaped hook 35 of FIG. 3 cannot be inserted into the rectangular slot 19 of FIG. 1.

It will be appreciated that there are many possible shapes for the hook 35 and slots 39 in addition to those shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, wherein the shape of the book 35 is such that it cannot be inserted into a conventional slot 19 and the shape of the slot 39 is such that it can accept both a hook 35 and a conventional hook 15. For example, the hook 35 may he designed such that the horizontal flange 47 is placed between the top and bottom edges of the vertical portion 41 whereby the hook 35 resembles a sideways T-shape, and the slots 39 may resemble a plus sign (+) corresponding to the sideways T-shape of the hook 35. It will be further appreciated that an HCSS shelf bracket may include one or more of the hooks 35 in combination with one or more of the conventional hooks 15, whereby the hooks 35 will preclude mounting the HCSS shelf bracket on a conventional support. 

1. A shelving system comprising one or more uprights and one or more shelf brackets adapted to be supported by the uprights by releasable engagement of rearwardly facing hooks of the brackets with slots in the uprights, wherein the hook is dimensioned and arranged in a manner that will not enter a vertical rectangular slot and wherein the upright has slots dimensioned and arranged to receive both the distal end of a standard shelf hook and said hook which is dimensioned and arranged in a manner that will not enter a vertical rectangular slot.
 2. A shelving system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the slot in the support is T-shaped.
 3. A shelving system as claimed in claim 2 wherein the distal end of the hook is L-shaped.
 4. A shelving system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the hook includes a flange.
 5. A shelving system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the slot in the support is dimensioned to accept a first said hook for a first said shelf and a second said hook for a second said shelf, wherein said first shelf is adjacent to said second shelf.
 6. A shelving system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the slot in the support is +-shaped.
 7. A shelving system as claimed in claim 6 wherein the distal end of the hook a shaped as a sideways T. 